Product Description

It's easy to praise God when things in your life are going well, but what about the other times? What happens when mountaintop experiences cascade into seasons of struggling in the valley?

God desires that we pour out our hearts to Him, whether in joy or pain. But many of us don't feel right expressing our anger, frustration, and sadness in prayer. According to author, musician, and Bible teacher Michael Card, our personal worship experience is not complete unless we understand the lost language of lament.

In A Sacred Sorrow, Card takes you through the Scriptures to show what your worship and prayer life has been missing. From Job to David to Christ, men and women of the Bible understood the importance of pouring one's heart out to the Father. Examine their stories and expand your definition of worship. Let your pain, questions, and sorrow resound with praise to a God who is moved by your tears. Winner of the 2006 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) award in Christian Life.

Publisher's Description

God desires for us to pour out our hearts to Him, whether in joy or pain. But many of us dont feel right expressing our anger, frustration, and sadness in prayer. From Job to David to Christ, men and women of the Bible understood the importance of pouring ones heart out to the Father. Examine their stories and expand your definition of worship.

Also available: A Sacred Sorrow Experience Guide (9781576836682, sold separately), to help individuals or small groups get the most out of this book.

Author Bio

MICHAEL CARD is an award-winning musician, performing artist, and songwriter. His many songs include "El Shaddai" and "Immanuel." He has also written numerous books, including A Violent Grace, The Parable of Joy, and A Fragile Stone. A graduate of Western Kentucky University with a bachelor's and a master's degree in biblical studies, Card is currently at work on a Ph.D. in classical literature. Michael lives in Tennessee with his wife and four children.

Publisher's Weekly

Card, a singer and songwriter, maintains that Christians have forgotten the
language of weeping and so are "robbed of our true identity before God"; he
prescribes an antidote through paradigms of lament found in Scripture. When
sin and dire circumstances cause us to doubt God's hesed, or loving-kindness,
lament is a proper response to despair. Without lament, Card claims, we cannot
adequately confess sin, worship or experience another's pain. With this in
mind, Card illustrates the hows and whys of sorrowful prayer in the lives of
Job, David, Jeremiah and Jesus. Long on exposition (what does it mean that
"the Word became flesh?") with a touch of speculation (David's personality is
attributed in part to his being a youngest child), these chapters chart
terrain that will seem foreign to proponents of easy, feel-good Christianity.
Especially jarring are sections about imprecatory Psalms ("The righteous will
be glad... when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked") and the
book of Lamentations, which describes compassionate women boiling their own
children. Card illuminates a neglected, difficult doctrine, in the process
accomplishing his goal of providing "assurance that we can lament... and a
fuller understanding of what that can mean." Appendixes summarize biblical and
extra-biblical laments. (Feb. 13) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

This book has increased my understanding of the character of God in a way that has brought me to an unquenchable desire to know Him more and more. I have stayed in this book for a number of months to saturate my mind with these ideas. 5 star Bible study guide.